My friends are not old, its just that I have had the privilege of knowing them awhile. It was a great afternoon in the city by the bay and I met up first with an ex-colleague of mine from my conusltant days. He was in town to shake the tree and sell his company's consulting services to possible clients.
He is good at it. The lunch appointment we had was for noon. He was on the phone all morning before he could make it down to meet. When he did appear he was nicely dressed up. It took me a moment to connect that it was him, because I was not sure if he dressed up for phone conferences or if he had put on a suit to meet me. I assumed it was the latter to flatter myself. Also he had glasses on. I had always seen him deglassed or unglassed during my time knowing him. I guess he did age after all.
We ate Sushi at a neighborhood Japanese restaurant that was surprisingly not too crowded considering the humanity that had descended for the conference in town. We reminisced of our time together and what we were up to with our respective lives and wives and other attachments.
It was fascinating to hear about what he was up to being successful at work and managing a family visting relatives etc. We did not have a whole lot of time together but it was definitely refreshing to get caught up on a decade of living our separate lives.
Next I met with another of my friends whom I befriended through consulting work I did in my past life. He too lives a very packed schedule with family and had flown in from the midwest to attend the same technology conference that my other friend had.
To me it was many friends in one visit type of arrangement. We had met few times since we worked together and not quite the gap as with the other friend who I had not seen close to 10 years. Still the pleasure of connecting in person beat the phone conversation or the electronic exchange over the data cloud using email etc.
I have promised my friends to send some pictures of my recent travels and might perhaps burden them with an invite to check out my blog. What are friends for after all eh?
Cool cat the Japanese are Tokyo at dusk My second visit to this land of the rising sun after almost a decade. Back then clearly I was wet behind the ears product manager and likely didn’t pay attention to all (efficient) things Japanese. But today I did and of course continue to be impressed. It is as much the obvious stuff like on time travel that is both clean and comfortable and all that which makes it possible. The impressive landmark and landscapes that these humans have put together despite their cramped (or because of it) surroundings and precarious geological conditions could amaze a novice architect among us. But it’s also the little things that someone had to think about which have a phenomenal impact on day to day lives that make the Japanese stand apart. Below are few random examples- 1. Providing a very fine machined wooden toothpick in every packet of wooden chopsticks. The said chapsticks are simply set on the To Go counter of any food vendor/ convenience store wher...
Yes, blog reading (and appreciating is a necessary qualification for one..
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